Acting Administrator Dan Elwell Tells Uber Executive That Agency May Not Move That Quickly

At the second annual Uber Elevate conference last week, acting FAA Administrator Dan Elwell was supportive of the company's efforts to offer automated eVTOL air taxi service in the U.S., but also said that approval may not come by the stated 2023 target date.

Rotor & Wing International reports that Elwell (pictured) met privately with Uber Chief Product Officer Jeff Holden during the summit, and said that while Uber hopes to be operational by 2023, "I'm certainly not going to make any commitments. What I will tell you unequivocally [is] there will be no degradation in safety as we know it today,”

Holden suggested that designated air corridors might be established for the operation of the eVTOL air taxis, but Ellwell said he prefers integration rather than an airspace carve-out for the aircraft. “Even if we’re going to do eVTOL from airports into the city, my hope is you’re going to be able to do it in an integrated way. To be honest the airspace around complex and dense traffic areas, corridors are going to be far more difficult than cracking the nut of true integration," he said.

(Image from file)

FMI: Original report